


Intertwined and Infinite

by alden



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-08-20 10:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alden/pseuds/alden
Summary: All the bits that don't quite fit. Fragments from another universe, another timeline. Small moments with Shepard and her companions.





	1. WORK DATE

**Author's Note:**

> Happy N7 day!
> 
> I write and re-write and overwrite and generally take forever to do anything. Often, for one reason or another, the things I write don't work in the story they're intended for. I'm still working and thinking (and thinking and thinking) on New Game and the other stories. I wish I had the new chapters in a place where I was ready to share them! But I don't. So I thought I might share some of those other bits instead, for now, and make a home for these small pieces of Shepard and Garrus and the whole ME crew that otherwise would float around in empty space forever. It's a small thing, but I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> I truly, deeply appreciate every single person who has taken the time to read, to bookmark, to write a comment or leave a kudo or give a shout-out, to feel feelings or think thoughts about things I've written. This community is a treasure and I am so glad to be part of it. I love every one of you. Thank you.

**1\. WORK DATE**

_Some time after Horizon_

"Your console's blinking."

Shepard glanced up at her desk. "Unread messages." She returned her attention to her datapad.

Then, after a minute of him staring at her, she put it down again. "—What."

"Here's the thing," Garrus said pleasantly. The code window hovering over his omni-tool flickered in the gloom. "If you read your messages, the console stops blinking. That's how the system works."

"I'll take that under advisement."

A short silence. "Shepard—"

"Don't get all riled up. I'm not shirking my responsibilities. I know what the message is." She poked irritably at her half-written mission report. Took a swig from her wine glass. Thunked it back down on the coffee table. "I just— don't want to deal with it yet."

"Why not?"

 _None of your business,_ she wanted to say, but that would be truly pathetic. "Kaidan wrote me," she said instead. It took a lot of effort to keep her voice neutral.

"...Ah."

Something in his tone told her she hadn't quite succeeded.

Garrus shifted forward in his seat. "So."

"Don't start, Vakarian."

He ignored her and reached for the open wine bottle. "He seemed pretty upset with you on Horizon."

She scowled. "He had a lot to be upset about, didn't he? Dying. Becoming un-dead. Cerberus."

Garrus tilted his head to one side. "I got over it."

Shepard looked at him for a long moment.

He topped up her wine glass, and handed it back to her.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

He shrugged, and settled himself back onto the couch. "Hey. It's your wine."

She smiled down into her glass.

He picked up one of her extra datapads, inspected it, then began tapping on the interface.

"Fornax auto-downloads to the D:/ drive," she said helpfully.

He flicked a mandible at her. "Your console's still blinking."


	2. ARTICULATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another quiet couch date, up in the captain's cabin.
> 
> This fragment owes a debt of inspiration to the wonderful and classic (and rated M) [Translation Unnecessary](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5794126/1/Translation-Unnecessary), by noobcake.

Their empty beer bottles sat in a sticky pool of condensation on her coffee table. He'd gotten the idea about halfway through his third.

"I _do_ actually know my way around tech shit," Shepard said, arm outstretched, watching Garrus tinker with her omni-tool. "You don't have to do it for me."

"The fact that you call it 'tech shit' doesn't inspire a lot of confidence." His head was bent over her wrist, fingers tapping against the holographic interface. "Anyway, I'm faster."

"My arm's tired," she lied.

He took her elbow and propped it on his knee. "Problem solved."

He started to hum as he worked. Shepard watched the lines of glowing orange code flick past on her little display, idly at first, then with more interest. Then she frowned. "Wait. You have to do this from inside the kernel?"

"Well, the manufacturers didn't want to make it easy to screw things up. The implant's sitting in your head, after all."

She considered this for a moment. Looked at the ring of empty bottles again. Then shrugged. "Okay. Don't fry my brain, Garrus."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Almost there—" He straightened up, looking satisfied, and pressed a keystroke. _"Fal iyet."_

"What?" she said, blinking at him. His mandible flicked up in a small smile. "Oh. But you can still understand me, right?"

"Eka. Arrete—" Garrus gestured for her to wait, then bent his head and tapped rapidly on his own omnitool. He glanced up at her expectantly. "Enlen."

"...What? Am I supposed to say something for you, now?"

 _"Wat,"_ he mimicked, amused.

"Hey. You sound stupid to me, too."

A lie. His unfiltered voice was shockingly rich. 

She leaned over and prodded his arm. "C'mon, say more stuff. What does your name sound like in your language?"

"Ar?" He tilted his head to the side.

 _"Arr,"_ she said, deadpan. His mandible flared out and down. "Turnabout's fair play. C'mon, Garrus." She made a back-and-forth, tit-for-tat gesture. Then, when he didn't get it, grabbed his hand in hers, and shook it with exaggerated gusto. "Hello, it's nice to meet you for the first time ever. I'm Commander Shepard. And _you're...?"_

He blinked. "Ah. Enl? Garrus Vakarian."

He laughed openly at her disappointed expression. Shepard dropped his hand back into his lap.

He had a fantastic laugh, though. Low, resonant. Warm.

"Fai," Garrus said, pointing a finger at her, and then uttered a string of mellifluous syllables. The dual-toned texture of his subharmonics wove in and out.

Shepard smiled up at him, helplessly amused. "You're talking gibberish, you alien bastard. You know that, right?"

"Ves dicherte," he said, and then said it again more insistently. "Fai, szevaard."

"Wait. Was that my name?" She leaned forward. "Say it again. Shepard."

"Szhevard," Garrus repeated carefully, then tilted his head, hearing the difference. "Hn."

"Sheh-pah-rrd," she said, feeling it out. "Oh. Hm. That's probably a hard sound for turians to make." She touched her fingers to her mouth. _"Pah. Pah._ See? Press your lips together."

"Iter fal." He bent his head close. Looked at her lips.

She held still a moment too long.

He glanced up. Made a questioning noise.

"—Um. Sorry. _Pah._ Sheh-pah-rrd."

"Fvah," he tried. "Ffvah." He frowned, pressing a long finger to his mouth, then looked intently at hers.

"I, um. Look, it may be a lost cause. Don't worry about it, Garrus."

"Ar? Eszya dichert, Szhevard." He straightened suddenly. "Ah." Another stream of silvery nonsense. He held up one hand in front of her mouth, watching her closely. "Iiy liszet?" 

His hand was very still. His eyes fixed on hers. Asking permission? She nodded slowly.

He touched his fingers gently to her lips.

Blood rushed to her cheeks. She murmured her name into his gloved fingertips. Watched him as he watched her.

He held still for a moment, then shook his head and drew back. Made a low, wry-sounding comment, then gestured at her mouth. 

"...All right, that's enough," she said, powering up her omni-tool. She flicked through his last entry, tweaked a line, and punched in the root command. "I know that look in your eye, Vakarian. You just made some wiseass crack at my expense."

"—No, it was at mine." He shut off his interface. "I was saying, I think you won that match." 

"Oh," she said. "Yeah." Her face was still pink.

"Sorry, Shepard. Guess I'm not properly equipped."

"You do just fine," she said quickly, and pushed herself up from the sofa. "Get you another beer?"


End file.
